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Apologies for cross-postings. Please find below details for the IAG Cultural Geography Study Group Conference to be held at UNSW@ADFA, Canberra, Australia 31 Jan-1 Feb 2011. We look forward to receiving your abstracts! Best wishes Scott Sharpe and Andrew Gorman-Murray, CGSG Convenors CALL FOR PAPERS: BODIES IN SITU/BODIES EX SITU - INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHERS CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY STUDY GROUP CONFERENCE UNSW@ADFA, CANBERRA MONDAY 31ST JANUARY - 1 FEBRUARY 2011 BACKGROUND Early interest in the body in geography, sociology, cultural studies and cognate disciplines tended to treat the body as an object. There was a sense of the body as something that could be left out of knowledge, so that the redemptive project became defined in terms of the 're-embodiment' of knowledge. As the determinant and/or marker of one's position, the body was seen to possess attributes that needed to be laid bare. The gesture of reflexivity - the naming of one's position in terms of gender, race, abilities and so on - was figured as an essential moment of honesty and sensitivity to the particularity of one's claims. While raising important questions, there are new directions in thinking about 'the body' that take that concept onto new terrains. This conference organises these directions according to two themes: bodies ex-situ and bodies in-situ. Seen from the point of view of their ex-situ status, the out-of-place character of bodies is emphasised. Rather than emphasising the body's positioning role, there is a marked shift toward recognising bodies as inseparable from the productive problems of movement and change. This is an orientation to bodies that recognises the 'intrinsic connection between movement and sensation'; the body moves and it feels, at the same time (Massumi 2002: 1). A body is never something that 'I' own, so much as a dynamic relation, which has a degree of autonomy from my subjective experience of it. The notion of excess is important to this way of thinking of bodies, since bodies are seen as excessive with respect to what consciousness and knowledge can grasp of them. Yet there is also some important work being done which tempers some of the more vitalist tendencies of this view of the body as the site of change and difference. Such work does not return the body to its status as a position in a spatial grid, but opens up new directions in the analysis of the body in-situ. In work done on waiting and stillness, for example, the challenge is to conceptualise condensations and slowing of the body's dynamics. The idea of context is particularly important to this work on bodies in-situ: how is the body tied up with relations of belonging as well as relations of becoming? We welcome contributions that speak to the broad themes of bodies in-situ/bodies ex-situ. These could include, but are not limited to, work on the ideas of corporeality; materiality; affect; emotion; vitalism; becoming; belonging. ABSTRACTS & TRAVEL ASSISTANCE Please forward abstracts (no longer than 250 words) to Andrew Gorman-Murray ([log in to unmask]) and Scott Sharpe ([log in to unmask]) by COB Wednesday 15 December 2010. This event is sponsored by the Institute of Australian Geographers and some travel assistance is available for post-graduate researchers presenting at the conference. Priority for this assistance will be given to postgraduate members of the IAG or the NZGS. ******************************************* Dr Scott Sharpe, School of Physical, Environmental and Mathematical Sciences, University of New South Wales @ The Australian Defence Force Academy Canberra ACT 2600 Tel. (612) 6268 6296 Fax. (612) 6268 8017